First pets, now dolls:
As Japan produces fewer children and more retirees, toymakers are designing new dolls designed not for the young but for the lonely and elderly–companions which can sleep next to them and offer caring words they may never hear otherwise.
Talking toys have become such a hit that some elderly people have embraced them as substitutes for the children who have grown old and deserted entire neighborhoods in the rapidly greying country.
The Yumel doll, which looks like a baby boy and has a vocabulary of 1,200 phrases, is billed as a “healing partner” for the elderly and goes on the market Thursday at a price of 8,500 yen (80 dollars).
About 8,000 Yumel dolls, designed by toymaker Tomy with pillows and bedding maker Lofty, have already been sold in less than three months in limited marketing in sleeping sections of department stores.
Link.
Japan is ahead of the ageing population curve. Western Europe is coming along next, and the U.S. "indigent persons" (meaning, people who have been here two or more generations) follow closely, so this might be an opportune time to invest in Mattel.
If cloning keeps progressing, maybe there's a major market opportunity here. We could establish farms of well-behaved kids in their late teens and program them with fealty and affection for a particular childless person, who would then pay, say, a million dollars to have the clone move into the same geographic area and be his son or daughter. We're not sure what we would do with all the excess dogs that would no longer be needed, but we could dispose of them handily enough, perhaps donating their processed body parts to the Live 38 concert to help feed people in Marxist African countries.
